How NOT to buy your first 914 (maybe) Options

[Bulldozer27]

Let me begin by saying that I take full responsibility for everything that transpired as I bought this car sight unseen based purely on math, flew to it's location and immediately drove it home. I knew what I was getting into with a
car that is one year older than me, so I wasn't exactly surprised when that drive home took a turn for the worse. This first post from me on 914World is meant to be entertainment/amusement/ridicule/catharsis for anyone here who can or cannot relate (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

With that said, a few years ago I owned an '06 Cayman S, which I can say was the best handling and most fun-to-drive car I've ever owned. My current daily driver is an '06 997.1S, which is borne out of the necessity to be able to chauffeur around two elementary-age children. While also enjoyable to drive on a daily basis, anyone who understands basic physics and isn't the typical shallow, superficial Porsche (specifically 911) fanboy understands that the engine is in the wrong place. For a number of reasons, I recently became enamored (again) with the idea of owning a 914, and this time, I was set on pulling the trigger. After about a month of searching, this car which I'd been watching off-and-on had inexplicably come down in price to where I had to make a move. Mathematically it was an absolute no-brainer, so after getting as much info as I could over the phone a deal was agreed. I flew up the next day (yesterday morning), liked what I saw based on my half-assed visual inspection, closed the deal, and proceeded to drive home. Notably (or stupidly), my VERY FIRST DRIVE in the car was said drive home.

The first 300 miles pass without a hitch. I even make a stop in Paso Robles for a couple of hours to see my old mentor/boss. Right at sunset I'm passing by Lake Cachuma on Hwy 154 (a remote, twisty mountain road) when the need to go #1 becomes untenable. I find a clearing off to the side, shut the engine off, and take care of business. Afterwards, I snap this fateful photo of the car right at sunset.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/i94.photobucket.com-22653-1544332936.1.jpg)

Bladder emptied and photo taken, I hop back in and turn the key. Engine doesn't crank at all. Try a few times but same result. Wait a minute or two, same. Everything else turns on, so it clearly isn't a dead battery. You can't see in the photo, but it's on an incline, so I try to back it around to where I can face downhill for a bump start. It gets stuck halfway around in the CA post-thunderstorm mud and I can't move it by myself. Now I'm REALLY stranded.

Due to the remote location and because it's a Friday evening, 3 hours pass from the time I make the pitstop until a tow truck arrives. Passing the time while waiting was especially tedious because the cigarette lighter barrel depth is more than any other car, so my phone charger isn't deep enough to connect. So in order to pass the time, I can neither call anyone nor listen to Pandora without killing my phone battery in a remote area where service is spotty at best. But since all I could do was think, I came to the conclusion that IF I could bump start the car, I would just drive home without shutting off the engine. Sure enough, we get back to civilization and the tow-truck driver and I get it started in a hotel parking lot with a decline after two attempts.

Now I'm back on the freeway headed home. I don't want to stop for food because I figure the hunger will keep me awake, but it turns out another issue will keep me from falling asleep on the drive. I also don't want to drink the extra Gatorade that I have because now that I'm in civilization, I can't just pull over on the side and drop my pants. I should also point out now that I realized within the first hour of starting the drive in the Bay Area that the fuel gauge was inoperable, meaning that I had to calculate fuel economy using the odometer. I make one last stop for gas (with the engine on) just before LA proper, reset the trip odometer again, and within a few miles I realize that the odometer and trip odometer have both stopped working. Of course, this is a minor annoyance on the road trip because I'm certain at this point that I can make it home without another stop for gas.

The big problem for me at this point is that it's now nighttime, this car has headers, and I'm wearing shorts because I live in SD. So I have no heat in the interior, and to make matters worse, all of the plastic trim around the HVAC controls are faded/worn out, so I have no idea what slider does what. I drive the final 270 miles home in high 40s/low 50s weather with fresh cold air blowing into the interior and no heat from the engine. When I finally arrive home just before 1am, my nose is frozen (and running profusely) as well as my hands, feet, and legs. On top of that, I'm also starving and dehydrated.

One does not need to be a rocket scientist and/or brain surgeon to figure out that I could have handled this transaction differently. But I wanted to ensure that no one else stole it out from under me given the price relative to the engine. I lost out on another car on this forum merely because I couldn't contact the seller until the afternoon after it was posted the night before. In closing this long-winded diatribe, I will say that, for the most part, the car is what I expected, and most importantly, I have a tragicomical story attached to the car that is now part of its history.

[injunmort]

I have had many of these cars over many years,though a popular fix on here, I have never experienced a bad ignition switch. that being said, I have bad batteries, bad grounds, bad connections, etc. before ripping into the switch, make sure you have 12volts at the battery, 12 volts at the starter when cranking or not. just to be safe replace the starter and the blinker fluid, while your in there.